NY Times sues Huffington Post over parenting blog

The New York Times Co has sued AOL Inc to force its Huffington Post online news website to rename a parenting blog with a similar name to its own.

In a lawsuit filed late Friday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the Times said Huffington Post's Parentlode blog had caused reader confusion with the newspaper's 3-year-old Motherlode blog.

Both blogs have been overseen by Lisa Belkin, who worked for the Times from 1982 to 2011 before joining AOL last month. The new blog started on October 24.

AOL spokeswomen did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy declined to comment. Both companies are based in New York.

The Times said Belkin clearly intended to confuse readers into believing her new blog was the same as her old blog, which she called a virtual koffee klatch for parenting.

Her first Parentlode blog entry referred to the Motherlode blog and said the name change in part reflected reader concerns that Motherlode does not fit in an era when fathers are every bit the parent. She also said the old name does not fit a blog that regularly champions equality, and new paradigms.